Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• James Ridgeway, Bush Policies Help Bring the Financial Crisis Home, Mother Jones Blog, 08 October 2008.


• David Corn, The Right's Final Attack: Obama is a Black Muslim, Anti-Christian Socialist Plotting with an Evil Jewish Billionaire, Mother Jones Blog, 17 October 2008.


• Arianna Huffington, The Internet and the Death of Rovian Politics, HuffingtonPost.com, 20 October 2008.


• James Carville & Paul Begala, Let the Blame Game Begin, HuffingtonPost.com, 20 October 2008.
  
  Also on the GOP's forthcoming blame game:
  
  Frank Rich, He Just Can’t Quit W, The New York Times, 18 October 2008.
  


• ** Chris Hedges, The Idiots Who Rule America, TruthDig.com, 20 October 2008.
  ("Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good.")


• Glenn Greenwald, Mark Halperin defends Rush Limbaugh's Powell/race theory, Salon.com, 21 October 2008.
  (Good dissection of right-wing propaganda and a racist double standard.)


• ** John Lanchester, Cityphobia, London Review of Books, posted to web 09 October 2008 (23 Oct 2008 issue).
  (A survey of recent economic developments.)
  
  Rating Companies Put Profits First, Critics Testify, Bloomberg.com, 22 October 2008.
  (A more accurate title for this article is: Rating Companies' CEOs Testify Before Congress.)
  
  In the "Very Responsible For This Current Mess" Department..., The Bonddad Blog, 22 October 2008.
  
  ** S&P: We Knew Nothing! Nothing!, The Big Picture, 22 October 2008.
  Ratings agencies: 'Kool-Aid drinking' lapdogs, The Big Picture, 23 October 2008.
  
  As everyone now knows, for several years prominant economists, financiers, politicians, and so on, warned about exactly the problems that the rating companies ignored. See, for example:
  Nicholas Graham, Economic Honor Roll, The Huffington Post, 12 October 2008.
  Graham names some of those who foresaw the U.S.'s emerging economic difficulties, with dated quotes and video; includes Nouriel Roubini; Warren Buffett; Nassim Nicholas Taleb; Byron Dorgan; Joseph Stiglitz; Paul Krugman. The article above from The Big Picture and its comments name many more. See also:
  
  ** Andrew Lahde, Good-bye Letter, Financial Times, 17 October 2008.
  
  Some expect more disruptions. Warning: The essays by Denninger very confidently and convincingly argue that very bad things are about to happen. Nevertheless, the sun will come up tomorrow, and some countries have no government debt and a well regulated financial industry that will not collapse regardless of what happens in the United States (the exemplar country I have in mind is Australia).
  
  Karl Denninger, The Stark Choice Now Facing America, The Market Ticker, 22 October 2008. Comments.
  
  Karl Denninger, Fiscal Cat 5 Hurricane Warning, The Market Ticker, 22 October 2008. Comments.
  
  Kim Asger Olsen, Pay-up time for Lehman swaps, Asia Times, 22 October 2008.
  But then, suddenly, nothing happened:
  Mary Williams Walsh, Tracking Firm Says Bets Placed on Lehman Have Been Quietly Settled, The New York Times, 22 October 2008.
  
  Regarding the present condition and future of the banking industry, a study by IBM finds top- and mid-level bankers clueless and directionless:
  
  David Weidner, The problem with banks is even bigger than you think; Beyond write-downs; The world's banking system shows some disturbing trends, MarketWatch.com, 23 October 2008.
  
  Small consolation:
  
  Michael M. Grynbaum, Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation, The New York Times, 23 October 2008.
  
  Meanwhile, down in the political gutter, some right-wingers are deliberately divisively promoting a racist interpretation of sub-prime mortgage market problems, as if the abundant and various well documented reports of financial industry greed during the last decade did not exist. Here is one refutation of the racists:
  Barry Ritholtz, Private Sector Loan Losses vs Fannie/Freddie, The Big Picture, 23 October 2008.
  


• Andy Worthington, Guantánamo's bleak farce, The Guardian, 21 October 2008.
  ("After dropping war crimes charges against five prisoners today, the US's use of military commissions is unraveling.")


• Stacy Sullivan, Confessions of a former Guantánamo prosecutor, Salon.com, 23 October 2008.


• Rami G. Khouri, Will Iraq finally end the colonial era?, The Daily Star (Lebanon), 22 October 2008.
  ("The wider issue at stake beyond American soldiers in Iraq is the effective end of the colonial era mentality that put Western troops and officials above the law, and kept indigenous Arab and Iranian national interests subservient to the greater colonial dictates of powers like England, France and, today, the United States. ")


• Daniel Luban, Is the Sun Setting on US Empire?, AntiWar.com, 23 October 2008.
  (This essay summarizes and reviews Andrew Bacevich's recent book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Metropolitan Books, August 2008: publisher; Amazon.com.)


• Glenn Greenwald, What is happening to GOP electoral tactics?, Salon.com, 22 October 2008.


• Glenn Greenwald, Bipartisanship and threats of war toward Iran, Salon.com, 23 October 2008.


• Gareth Porter, Final Text of Iraq Pact Reveals a US Debacle, AntiWar.com, 23 October 2008.


• Robert Draper, The Making (and Remaking) of McCain, The New York Times Magazine, 26 October 2008.


• Jane Mayer, How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin, The New Yorker, 27 October 2008.
  (Mayer is the author of the book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, Doubleday, July 2008: publisher, Amazon.com. The book is a Finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, Nonfiction. Listen to Mayer interviewed by Terri Gross, Fresh Air, 15 July 2008 and 24 October 2008.)


• A. Craig Copetas, 'Out of Control' Wall Street Chiefs Spurned Warnings at Davos, Bloomberg.com, 24 October 2008.


• Jeff Stein, Beirut Bombings: Intelligence Warning Sat in Pipeline, CQ Politics, 21 October 2008.

Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• Subrata Ghoshroy, Chomsky: "The Majority of the World Supports Iran", AlterNet.org, 03 October 2008.
  
  Subrata Ghoshroy, Chomsky: "If the U.S. Carries Out Terrorism, It Did Not Happen", AlterNet.org, 04 October 2008.


• * Chris Floyd, The Wounded Shark: 'Good War' Lost, But the Imperial Project Goes On, Empire Burlesque, 05 October 2008.


• Al Jazeera, The End of American Capitalism? 5 Short Takes on Where the Financial Crisis Might Be Headed, AlterNet.org, 07 October 2008.
  (The five economists interviewed are: James Galbraith, Gerald Friedman, Mark Weisbrot, John Berlau, and James S. Henry.)


• Glenn Greenwald, Sarah Palin's museum of trite right-wing tactics: 1980-2008, Salon.com, 07 October 2008.


• Suzanne Goldenberg, McCain is heading for defeat, says Republican analyst, The Guardian, 08 October 2008.


• * Peter S. Goodman, The Reckoning: Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy, The New York Times, 08 October 2008.
  
  The Reckoning: "Articles in this series are exploring the causes of the financial crisis." The New York Times.


• Nancy A. Youssef, Financial crisis could put crimp in defense spending plans, McClatchy Newspapers, 08 October 2008.


• * Glenn Greenwald, Major shock: Eavesdropping powers abused without oversight, Salon.com, 09 October 2008.


• Juan Cole, Reprint Edn.: Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes, Informed Comment, 09 October 2008.


• Mary Shaw, Maryland State Police put nonviolent activists on terror lists, The Smirking Chimp, 09 October 2008.


• Michael Collins, Election 2008: The Difficulty Stealing It This Time; New 2008 Democratic Primary Voters Are The Key to Election Protection, The Smirking Chimp, 09 October 2008.


• Christopher Hitchens, America the Banana Republic, Vanity Fair website, 09 October 2008.


• * Noam Chomsky, Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being Exposed, CommonDreams.org, 10 October 2008.
  ("Bretton Woods was the system of global financial management set up at the end of the second World War to ensure the interests of capital did not smother wider social concerns in post-war democracies. It was hated by the US neoliberals - the very people who created the banking crisis writes Noam Chomsky")


• Justin Raimondo, The American Empire, RIP; The 'declinists' were right, AntiWar.com, 10 October 2008.


• Juan Cole, McCain: Obama Decent, no Arab, Informed Comment, 11 October 2008.


• Nicholas Graham, Economic Honor Roll, The Huffington Post, 12 October 2008.
  (Names some of those who foresaw the U.S.'s emerging economic difficulties, with dated quotes and video; includes Nouriel Roubini, Warren Buffett, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Byron Dorgan, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman.)


• PAUL KRUGMAN, Gordon Does Good, The New York Times<, 12 October 2008.
  MARK LANDLER and ERIC DASH, Drama Behind a $250 Billion Banking Deal, The New York Times, 14 October 2008.
  LANDON THOMAS JR, British Prime Minister’s Stock Rises as His Bank Plan Lifts Stocks Worldwide, The New York Times, 14 October 2008.
  STEPHEN CASTLE, British Leader Wants Overhaul of Financial System, The New York Times, 15 October 2008.


• M K Bhadrakumar, Energy superpower emerges in the Caspian, Asia Times, 17 October 2008.
  ("The immense scale of Turkmenistan's gas reserves, revealed after an independent audit, elevates the country to the top rank of gas producers. More, it renders Moscow's energy strategy obsolescent and rekindles United States and European hopes of loosening Russia's grip on Central Asian gas pipelines. Former invader China has its own trump cards to play.")


• Aziz Huq, How to manage an imperial decline, Asia Times, 18 October 2008.
  ("As shown with the British empire in the post-World War II years, there is inherent danger when a great power in economic crisis disastrously miscalculates what it can actually do in the world. Now, just as Britain had its Suez crisis, the United States has Iran.")


• Howard Wolfson, The End of Nixonland, The Flack blog at The New Republic, 18 October 2008.


• Seth Colter Walls & Nico Pitney, Colin Powell Endorses Obama, The Huffington Post, 19 October 2008.

Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• * Chris a/k/a "DCLaw1," The Essence of the 2008 Election, Distilled, Inside-Out the Beltway, 14 May 2008.
  (This essay found in the comments to Greenwald's 26 September essay, link below.)


• * Roger Cohen, Palin’s American Exception, The New York Times, 25 September 2008.


• Glenn Greenwald, National Review asks: Did WaMu fail because it employed minorities?, Salon.com, 26 September 2008.


• ** Glenn Greenwald, Bailout follows the 10 normal principles for how our government functions, Salon.com, 29 September 2008.


• Glenn Greenwald, Wash Post's Pearlstein: Anyone opposing the bailout is ignorant, Salon.com, 01 October 2008.
  (Illustrates how a Ministry of Propaganda operates when challenged.)


• Barry Ritholtz, Understanding the Significance of Mark-to-Market Accounting, The Big Picture, 01 October 2008.
  (Link found at The Bonddad Blog, which I usually find informative.)


• Barry Ritholtz, SEC Deregulation Let Banks Leverage Up, The Big Picture, 03 October 2008.


• Robert Fisk, When it comes to Palestine and Israel, the US simply doesn't get it, The Independent, 04 October 2008.
  (The U.S. electorate is vastly misinformed about the Middle East, Central Asia, and the politics of those regions. Why? Who benefits?)


• Joe Conason, The dumbing down of the GOP, Salon.com, 04 October 2008.
  ("Why aren't more conservatives disgusted that their party nominated a person devoid of qualifications for the vice presidency (again)?")


• * Paul Krugman, Health Care Destruction, The New York Times, 05 October 2008.


• * Chris Hedges, Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal, TruthDig.com, 05 October 2008.


• Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, Economy in Shambles; Markets Crashing, The Huffington Post, 06 October 2008.


• Ann Berg, Down the Road to Serfdom, AntiWar.com, 06 October 2008.


• * Nouriel Roubini, Radical Policy Steps Necessary to Avoid a Systemic Meltdown: Interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, RGE Monitor, 07 October 2008.


• Patrick Cockburn, Obama and McCain's Goofy Afghan Bluster, CounterPunch.org, 07 October 2008.


• Gary Leupp, Seven Years in Afghanistan: From "War on Terror" to "War of Terror", CounterPunch.org, 07 October 2008.